July 4: Owing to Friday's rough weather conditions, the coast guard and naval helicopters failed to recover the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot of the Elbee cargo Fokker Friendship aircraft that crashed in the sea off Madh Island in north-west Mumbai on Thursday.A team of the director general of civil aviation (DGCA) is already in Mumbai co-ordinating investigations into the crash with the regional director of air safety. The black box of the aircraft still eludes the search teams even as the aerial search has drawn blank so far. Operations would be resumed tomorrow morning, while the coast guard's off-shore patrol vessel CGS Vigraha would continue to look for survivors round the clock, a coast guard spokesman said.There was no trace of the flying crew Captain H M Majumdar and first officer Paresh Balsara even after 38 hrs this evening at 6 pm, when search helicopters suspended their sorties.The coast guard's two Chetak helicopters and Dornier aircraft flew eight sorties despite rough sea in an area of two miles off Madh Island looking for the debris and the black box (voice recorder) of the aircraft which could hold clues to the cause of the crash. The coast guard will deploy its divers tomorrow to carry out underwater search for the black box and wreckage of the aircraft.
